


blue brought us together

by thetasteoflies



Series: kay's zutara one-shots: fluff [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bartender!Zuko, F/M, Fluff, cw child abuse, gradstudent!katara, it's brief don't worry, it's really cute and funny and fluffy i promise, there's like a touch of sad in here because these characters have very sad backstories, this story is really just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27546859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetasteoflies/pseuds/thetasteoflies
Summary: Katara ends up really liking blue drinks. Rather, she ends up reallyyyyy liking the person who makes them.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: kay's zutara one-shots: fluff [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112990
Comments: 46
Kudos: 214
Collections: Zutara- some of my fave fics





	blue brought us together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StokeThineFireandQuellThineIre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StokeThineFireandQuellThineIre/gifts).



> for my love who requested a bartender AU. 
> 
> [så, her er det. til dig, skat. jeg elsker dig.]

* * *

* * *

“What would you like?”

“A quick death.”

The bartender quirked an eyebrow at her and she smiled back, a defeated, exhausted, but good-humored smile.

His eyes lit up in amusement. “Rough day?”

Katara simply nodded, dumped her bag on the floor, and dragged her sorry butt into a barstool.

“I’ve got just the thing,” he said, turning to gather ingredients.

Katara breathed a sigh of relief, elbows splayed against the clean shiny wood of the bar top. The late afternoon light poured in from a large window that faced the street. This place was far from a dive, but it was undoubtedly a college bar. And it was undoubtedly on her way home. And she was undoubtedly in need of a drink.

Her eyes lingered along the street, normally bustling with students, now empty but for a few poor souls such as herself who had stayed for summer session. She was the only one in the bar, trying to dissolve her stress in denial and alcohol like any good grad student would. But unlike any other grad student she was only one painstaking class away from being completely free to work on her thesis.

And that class just so happened to be the one she had been dreading since she started grad school and had thus put off for as long as humanly possible. Graduate level biostatistics. She had decided to take it over the summer to finally get it out of the way. And in exchange, she gave up the chance for an internship or traveling or any of the other things her friends were off doing with their summer. Hell, she’d even rather be shoveling snow back home. Literally anything would be better than this.

Yet here she was.

Thus, this thusness. Katara. Summer school. Alone. Stats. Need a drink.

She turned her attention to the man behind the bar who had gathered an absurd number of bottles in front of him and was beginning to pour various amounts of who-knows-what into a shaker.

He laid a black napkin lightly down in front of her and placed a glass of blue liquid on top of it. When she didn’t move, he nudged it toward her. She flicked her gaze from him to the drink back to him, not sure which looked more ridiculous – the aqua blue swirling around ice in her glass or the goofy, half-grin on the bartender’s face.

“What exactly,” Katara asked as she picked up the glass to inspect it, “did you make me?”

“What you asked for.”

“This is my quick death?”

“Yep,” he said as she took a tentative sip of the drink. “AMF.”

It was sweet and citrus-y and tasted nothing like the number of liquors that she had certainly watched him pour into the shaker. It was good.

“AMF?” she asked as she took another sip.

“Adíos Motherfucker.”

Katara coughed as she inhaled a laugh and a few drops of her drink came with it. She sputtered a cough and tapped her hand against the bar-top in an attempt to get control over herself.

When she took a few steadying breaths and was ready to be a human again, she looked up to find the bartender with his arms crossed over his chest, and a barely disguised smile. He was clearly entertained by her struggle.

“You know,” he said, “that is actually not the worst reaction I’ve ever gotten.”

“Oh?” was all she could manage.

“Yeah. Far from the best. But not the worst.”

Katara hummed, a twinge of embarrassment fluttering in her chest. She nursed her drink for no other reason than to have something to do.

“So?” he prompted.

“So what?”

“How is it?”

“It tastes like blue.”

He laughed at that and Katara found herself laughing too, despite the shit-ass day she’d had. All the more strangely, she found herself not wanting to stop. It was nice to laugh. Nice to talk to someone who didn’t speak math at her.

“I don’t think I should take that as a compliment,” he said, still chuckling.

“Hmmm…how about, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever had.”

“Then what is?” He rested his elbows on his side of the bar. He looked relaxed. Because of course he did. Because she was the only one here. He was just making conversation. Just being polite, she told herself.

“Jungle juice.”

“Oh no.” There was that laugh again.

“Oh yes. But what more can you expect from a bunch of twenty-year old college boys?”

“As a former twenty-year old college boy, I resent that remark. But as a bartender, I shudder at the thought.”

She giggled. “It gets worse. They made it in one of those plastic-storage-bin things and stirred it with a shovel.”

He put a hand to his forehead and mock-fainted.

“Oh and of course to serve it, they just dunked a red Solo cup in the bin and handed it to you,” she said, watching his face contort with amused horror.

“Ugh, that’s so disrespectful.”

“What to a party full of college kids?”  
  


“No, to the bin. And the shovel. And the cups. And yeah, you guys too, I guess.”

Whether it truly was that funny or the alcohol was taking the edge off her normal amount of inhibition, Katara burst out in laughter, setting her glass down to avoid spilling it with an abrupt little _clink!_

The bartender leaned on his side of the bar, his chin propped up in his hand and smirked at her reaction. His eyes crinkled at the edges and Katara allowed herself the pleasure of watching them glitter with merriment in the golden light of the setting sun. This was the first pleasant interaction with another human she’d had all week and she allowed herself to revel in it.  
  


So, too, did he by way he watched her.

“I take it you’re a student?” he said after a minute.

“Yeah. Master’s student.”

“What are you getting your master’s in?”

“Bioengineering.”

“Wow,” he said, sounding genuinely impressed. And then in a much less genuine tone, “Does that mean you can hack into people’s DNA?”

“Totally."

“Cool. Can you give me superpowers?”

“Yes, that’s definitely something I can do.” She gave him a wry smile. “What power do you want?”

He hummed and tapped a finger against his lips, thoughtfully and it was at this moment Katara noticed a series of jagged lines that extended from his cheekbone to his forehead. They were only slightly lighter than his skin tone and looked like they could have been claw marks from an animal. But there were too many off them. And as she looked a little closer, she realized there were others crisscrossing all across his cheek.

“When I was a kid,” he said, jarring Katara back to their conversation, “I would have wanted the power of invisibility. But now? Now, I think I’d want the power of transformation.”

“Transformation?”

“Yeah, like,” he said, picking up a lemon from the counter, “I’d want to be able to take this lemon and turn it into a baseball or something.”

“That seems…kind of tame.”

“It would be useful. What about you? What super-power would you want?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Super speed. So I could get through this stupid class faster. So I could finish my thesis.”

“That seems like a bad idea.”

“Well, excuuuuuuuse me,” she exaggerated. She was definitely feeling the effects of the blue drink. What the hell was in that thing?

“No, I just mean, why would you want to speed through life?”

“Not all of it. Just the bad parts.”

“You need those.”

“I need those? Why? Do people need to suffer?” She asked the question sarcastically, but he answered it anyway.

“Suffering is inescapable. It shapes you. You cannot outrun it. The question is not if you will suffer, only how much. And then the only other question that matters is, ‘What will you do with it?’”

He said it with such nonchalance. As if it were as obvious as the sky is blue. As if it were something as undeniable as gravity. As if he were speaking something not that he had read in a book but something he had lived.

Katara was a bit stunned. All she could think to say was, “Shit. This got real heavy, real quick.”

He simply shrugged and turned to greet another few people who had walked in the door.

She puzzled on that for a moment, slurping the dregs of her drink and trying to decipher his meaning. Trying to see below the surface. Because, she was now sure, there was something there to be found. She just didn’t know what.

When he came back to her, her glass was empty and she was idly swinging her legs off the barstool, pleasantly buzzed.

“Can I get you anything else?”

“No, definitely not. The magic blue potion was plenty.”

He smiled and shook his head as he took her glass.

“What do I owe you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? How’s that?”

“Rough day discount.”

She frowned at him. “That’s hardly a way to run a business. Besides with all the stressed-out grad students like me running around, you’d be handing out free drinks to everyone who passes by.”

He gave her a look that said, ‘Really? You’re going to fight me on this?’ Little did he know Katara would fight anyone on anything at any time.

“Alright, it’s on me, then,” he said.

She quirked an eyebrow at him and he mirrored her, meeting the challenge in her eyes and serving it back to her, although his came with a kindness she wasn’t expecting and a half-smile.

She conceded. “Thanks for the blue thing.”

He chuckled at her surrender. That laugh again, smaller this time but just as warm. “You’re welcome.”

“And the conversation.”

“Anytime.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

That evening, Katara glared at her laptop and it glared back at her. The cursor on her thesis draft mocked her with every successive _blink blink blink._ And it wasn’t like she had anything preferable to distract her. Her choices were to work on her thesis, study for her biostats class, or go to bed. Option A wasn’t working out very well. And if she had to run one more chi-square analysis or two-sampled T test through her brain, she thought she might cry.

Bed, then.

Somehow, that proved to be the worst option. She tossed and turned, unable to settle and unable to get the question, “What will you do with it?” out of her head. More than that, she was unable to get the stranger who had asked it out of her head. The stranger who was kind of funny in a dry, charming sort of way. The stranger who had turned on a dime from super-powers to a rather dark philosophical stance and then right back to casual conversation. The stranger who bought her a drink for no reason other than she’d had a bad day. The stranger with the nice laugh and a strange scar on his face.

The stranger.

Fuck.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Katara justified going back to the bar the next week with the fact that it was Friday and she’d had another long week and they also served food there and she didn’t feel like cooking and on and on and on. Yes, she felt totally justified.

She walked in that evening and found it much busier than the first time she had been there. Despite the sea of people, she scanned the crowd in search of just one person. One person whose name she didn’t know. One person she had had one conversation with over a week ago. One person who probably wouldn’t even remember her. One person who she had thought – _oh there he is._

He was facing her, talking to a customer, looking very much the same as he had last time. Dark hair tied up. Simple black T-shirt. Leaning forward, his posture relaxed.

She was staring. She should stop staring. He would definitely notice a weirdo creeping on him from across the room. He would definitely notice a – _oh he noticed._

_Run!_

_No, stay!_ His eyes lit up in recognition and he nodded to his right, silently asking her to take a seat. _He looks…happy? To see me?_

She elbowed her way through the crowd and found herself a seat at the far end of the bar and waited patiently while he made his way down the line.

“Hey,” he said when he finally got to her several minutes later.

“Hi.”

“Nice to see you again. What can I make you? Something blue?”

“You remember me?”

“Of course. You promised me super-powers. How could I forget that?” He laughed and Katara’s stomach did a little flip.

“So,” he said, “drink?” When she didn’t answer immediately, he added, “Or are you just here to see me?”

_Yes._

“No! I mean yes. Yes to a drink. Yes, please.”

His eyes crinkled at the edges again and she noticed that they weren’t symmetric. The left one – the one surrounded by those pale jagged lines – didn’t open as much as the right. Maybe he had been attacked by an animal after all. But the more she looked, the more she saw dozens of scars of varying length and width scattered all across the left side of his face. And she couldn’t think of an animal that had claws of varying widths.

A moment later he placed a tall glass filled with electric blue liquid in front of her.

She picked it up, took a small sip to taste. Fruity. Bubbly. Yummy.

“Does this one have a funny name too?” she asked, taking a longer sip.

“Sex in the Driveway.”

She couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped her. But at least this time she didn’t make herself into a coughing, sputtering mess. She only laughed into her drink, causing it to bubble back in her face.

_Smooth. Real smooth,_ she thought. She looked up to find the bartender looking all too pleased with himself.

“So, do all blue drinks have ridiculous names?” she said accusingly, wiping the sticky stuff off her face.

“Nah. Only the two I’ve made you.”

“Why would you—”

“I thought it would be funny,” he said, laughing to himself while he looked her up and down. “And I was right.”

“Hmph!”

He laughed again. That goddamn laugh. “Enjoy,” he said, turning back to the other customers.

Katara drank her delicious, bubbly, blue drink as grumpily as possible for someone enjoying a delicious, bubbly, blue drink. She made a point to narrow her eyes at him whenever he looked in her direction. But when he met her gaze and offered her a smirk in return, she gave up the pretense of false annoyance. In truth, she just wanted to talk to him again. But as the night went on, the bar was getting busier and busier and she knew he didn’t have the time to idly chat with her.

After a while, she waved him over. It was only then, as he approached, she realized she didn’t have a plan. She just wanted any excuse to talk to him.

“Sup? Want another?”

“No, uh… no.”

“Okay... Want me to take your glass?”

“Yeah,” she said. _Now what? Think, dummy, think!_

“Anything else?” he asked, lingering.

“Just the bill, please.” _Not just that!_ “And,” she said before she could stop herself, “your name?”

“My name?” he repeated.

“Yeah. Well, I mean, you don’t have to. Only if you wa—”

“Zuko.”

“Zuko,” she said, trying it out.

“And yours?”

“Katara.”

“Katara. See you again?”

_Most definitely._

“Yeah.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

There was the old three-day rule for calling someone after they’d given you their number. There was the more modern one-day rule for texting someone after they’d given you their number. But there was no rule that Katara was aware of that specified how long to wait before going back to see someone who had dropped the most casual, vague, maybe-not-even-real invitation to hang out. And it was driving her mad.

Two days seemed desperate. (Accurate). Three days seemed eager. (Accurate). Four days seemed impatient. (Accurate). Fine. Five days it is.

Biostats class always dragged. She was painfully aware of every minute that passed. But on this particular day, (which just so happened to be five days later, thank you very much) she was desperately aware of every second that passed. She tried to occupy her mind by calculating the statistical probability that she would make a total fool out of herself when she saw him again. Let’s see…if our null hypothesis is that Katara will NOT make a fool out of herself, and we do a chi-square test… Let me just punch in these numbers real quick. Okay, we get a p value of 0.001. Aha! We can reject the null hypothesis.

She’s definitely going to do something dumb. Or dorky. Or both. See? The math is right there.

When she finally got to the bar, she paused outside and tugged the scrunchy out of her hair. She shook out her curls and let them fall around her shoulders. She glimpsed at her reflection in the window.

_Not bad._

Then she tried to push the pull-door and ran into it.

_That one doesn’t count._

She straightened herself and walked in with as much dignity as she could scrape together.

“Having some trouble?” Zuko snarked when she sat down.

_He saw. Okay, that one counts._

“Shut up.”

He laughed. He was always laughing at her.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

_What?_

_WHAT??_

_??????_

“What do you mean?” she asked, calmly.

“I can’t make a blue drink now without remembering you bubbling it all over yourself.”

_Does making a fool out of myself apply retroactively?_

She pursed her lips at him.

“Sorry,” he said, not looking sorry at all. “But, it’s true. No one else’s reactions are as funny as yours.”

“Glad to be of entertainment value,” she said sarcastically.

“Okay, wait. Let me start over.” He cleared his throat. “Hi, Katara. I’m glad to see you again. How are you?”

She crossed her arms and gave him a disapproving look.

“What? You don’t like that approach either? Hmmm…let’s see what else can I try?” Zuko tapped his chin thoughtfully. Or fake thoughtfully or whatever.

“Oh! Got it. One sec. This one only works with a prop.” He disappeared behind the counter for a second and popped back up with a shot glass. He flipped a bottle of tequila upside down and poured some into the glass in one smooth motion. He placed it in front of her and resumed his position.

“Okay here goes,” he dropped his voice an octave. “Hey girl. I see you’ve got some tequila. Does that mean you wanna give me a shot?”

“Was that…was that a pick-up line?”

“Depends. Did it work?”

“Nope.”

“Then, no. It was a joke,” he said, reaching for the shot glass.

“Ah ah. This is mine now,” she said, tossing it back.

He rolled his eyes. “You don’t like nice. You don’t like fuckboy. What else is there?”

Katara wiped her mouth and held out her hand. “Lime please.”

“Oh, sorry,” Zuko said, scrambling to cut her a lime wedge.

She sucked on the wedge. “What kind of bartender are you?” she chastised, happy to finally get to tease him for something.

“You distracted me!”

“Excuses, excuses.”

“Fine. How can I make it up to you? The bane of every bartender’s existence, a mojito?”

“I don’t think those come in blue.”

“I can make it blue.”

“Just for me?”

“Just for you.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Katara nursed her drink slowly over the course of an hour, chatting with Zuko as he worked. The place got a bit busier as it got later, but nothing as crazy as the Friday crowd. He’d return to her whenever he finished with someone else and they talked about nothing in particular. She discovered that they were both immigrants, although he was newer than she was.

“I moved here when I was eight,” she told him. “My dad and brother and I needed a fresh start after my mom died.”

“I’m very sorry to hear about your mom. It’s hard to lose a parent that young. Or anytime really.”

“Thanks,” she said, appreciative of the sentiment. “What about you? When did you move here?”

“Let’s see,” he said, looking up and to the left as if trying to locate the fact in the archives of his memory. She noted again, that his left eye didn’t seem to move as well as his right. “I was 18. So, about eight years ago.”

“What made you come here?”

“Well,” he hesitated, and she worried that maybe she’d overstepped. But then he said, “I guess I’m the same as you. I needed a fresh start.”

_From what?_ she wondered.

“Hey, can I see a food menu?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes. That’s why I asked to see a food menu. People eat food when they’re hungry, Zuko.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He glanced down at his watch. “I get off in about ten minutes if you want to go somewhere else. Maybe get some pizza or something?”

No thoughts. Just internal _!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

“Are you asking me out?”

“Depends. What’s your answer?”

“I’d love to.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

After some pizza, they walked all over the city, taking in the gentle hum of the summer evening. They talked about Katara’s master’s program, her family, her friends. Katara tried to ask the same questions back to him, but he always deflected anything about his family.

_Okay, we can start small._

“So how did you get into bartending?” she said as they walked. She wasn’t quite sure where they were going; she knew they were going uphill, but not much beyond that. Zuko seemed to be directing them with some intent.

“I needed a job. And my therapist said it would be good for me to do something where I interact with lots of different people.”

“Bartending seems to fit that.”

“I get to meet all kinds of different people. I got to meet you.”

“Lucky you,” she joked, nudging his shoulder with hers as they walked side by side.

“Lucky me,” he agreed.

It was at this moment that she realized she had never touched him. And it was the very next moment that she realized that she really, really wanted to.

“Where are you taking us?” she asked when he made a left down a small lane.

“You’ve never been up here?”

“No?”

“Perfect. Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her along.

_!!!!!!!!_

His hand was warm over hers as he led them to the end of the lane. When the trees parted, the city came into full view below them. Katara let out a tiny gasp as the city lights sparkled against the inky night sky. It was dazzling.

She was still holding Zuko’s hand and she didn’t know if she was supposed to let go now. After all, he’d only taken her hand to lead her here. But, he hadn’t let go either. So maybe?

_Oh, fuck it. Ima do what I want._

She laced her fingers with his. He didn’t pull away.

“This is beautiful. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Now there’s a good one.”

“A good what?”

“Reaction.” He smiled down at her. Scratch that. He smirked.

“You’re full of it, you know that?”

“Would you prefer that I weren’t?”

“No. I like it.”

“I wasn’t always.”

“What, snarky?”

“Yeah. I used to be…” He looked out toward the city with unfocused eyes. “…different.”

_Start small._

“What changed?”

“Having a fresh start. New people. And a lot of therapy.”

Katara didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what the appropriate response was. ‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t right. ‘Tell me more’ felt too intrusive. She settled on what she thought she might want to hear.

“I’m glad you’re here now, Zuko.”

He squeezed her hand in his, gently. “Me too.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Katara woke up the next morning to her phone buzzing. She groggily picked it up and pulled down the notification bar. A text from Zuko. She smiled to herself as the memory of last night washed over her. Was that a date? That had to have been a date. He had taken her to a romantic overlook and held her hand and walked her home and asked for her number. Date? Date.

_Zuko: Did that pick-up line seriously not work on you? I thought it was pretty good._

_Z: Also, hi. Good morning_

A cheesy grin broke across her face and she knew how ridiculous it was to feel this giddy over a simple text, but that didn’t stop her. She texted back,

_Katara: It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever heard. And I mean…I guess it did work._

_K: And good morning to you too._

Three dots popped up immediately and his response came a second later.

_Z: What’s the worst you’ve ever heard?_

_K: One time a guy came up to me and handed me a library card and said, “I’d like to check you out.”_

_Z: Oh, come on! That’s clever!_

_K: You don’t strike me as the pick-up line type._

_Z: Not really. I just like puns._

She took a second to think before she typed,

_K: Can you make me one of these?_ 🍍🐨

_Z: ??_

_K: Piña koala._

_Z: …I’m keeping you._

_K:_ 😉

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

“I. Am. A. Good. Student.” Katara repeated the mantra as she opened biostatistics textbook and tried to ignore Zuko’s “ _want to go for a walk today?_ ” text. It was a Monday morning and she had a quiz in class that afternoon that she was not nearly ready for. She’d either seen or incessantly texted Zuko every day since their date. (Date? Date.) Not that she was complaining. Evidently, neither was he.

She texted back,

_K: Can’t today. Need to study._ 😩

_Z: No worries. I hope stats isn’t too mean to you._

_K: nice._

_Z: thanks._

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Katara managed to get through the week without tearing her textbook to shreds. She texted Zuko on Friday after class,

_K: TGIF_

He didn’t text back for a few minutes. Katara wondered if she should just go surprise him at work.

_Z: You know Fridays are like my Mondays, right?_

_K: Aw, you pour thing._

_Z: …_

_Z: Come here. That deserves a real-life fist bump._

_K: omw_

She stopped by the bathroom to fluff her hair and put on a spot of lipstick and change out of her t-shirt into the decidedly less school-appropriate blouse she had brought from home. It may have seemed impromptu, but she was going to see him today one way or another. It was just convenient that he gave her such an easy opening.

She walked into the bar fifteen minutes later (and pulled the pull door this time, thank you very much.)

She sauntered up to the bar where Zuko had his back to her, rearranging bottles.

“Hi,” Katara said.

Zuko turned at the sound of her voice. “H—oh wow.”

She blushed as his eyes roamed over her. It was funny – two weeks ago, she didn’t even know his name. And now she pounced on any excuse to talk to him, see him, touch him, anything. She held a fist out toward him.

“Pound it.”

“Huh? Oh,” he chuckled, shook his head, and fist-bumped her. Really if a pun isn’t good enough to make someone groan or shake their head sadly, it’s not worthy of being called a pun at all. God-tier pun is when the other person doesn’t say anything and just walks out of the room. Katara aspired to that level of greatness one day.

In the meantime, though, she was happy to keep practicing on Zuko.

“Can I make you something? Or do you just want to _wine_ for a little while?” That one is particularly hard to get across verbally, but Zuko flicked a wine glass as he emphasized the word.

“Dork,” Katara mumbled under breath as she took a seat.

He looked pleased by her grumbling. “How was stats today?” he asked as he started gathering things in front of him.

“Eh. Average.”

He paused mid-pour. “Come on.” He tsked and went back to pouring. “You can do better than that.”

Fair enough. That was low-hanging fruit.

“Sorry. There’s not much variance with stats puns.” _There. Much better._ She waited expectantly for his reaction.

“Oh, was that one?” he said when he realized she was waiting. “You’re gonna have to explain that one to me.”

“I’d rather chew off my own arm than talk about statistics,” she said as he slid a glass toward her. “This isn’t blue.”

“Very good, Katara. That color is called red,” he quipped.

“Shut it.” She took a sip. Tangy.

“So? Does it taste like red?” he asked, referencing her very first comment about the first drink he made her.

“No. It’s good. Different. But good. What’s it called?”

“That’s a Fire Lily. It’s basically a dressed-up vodka cranberry.”

“I like it.”

“I’m glad.” He glanced around, noticing the Friday crowd starting to form a line. “I need to help some other people. Are you okay by yourself?”  
  


“Totally. Go, go.” She waved him off.

She watched him work. Maybe ‘watched’ was too mild of a term. She fixated on the way the muscles of his forearm flexed when he squeezed a lemon. She traced the outline of the muscles of his back as they stretched the fabric of his black shirt when he flipped a bottle or reached for something. She followed the little wisps of dark hair that fell out of his topknot when he moved. And she laughed to herself at the cute, annoyed look he got when he pushed the hair out of his face every now and then.

He glanced in her direction every few minutes even as the Friday crowd demanded his attention and mouthed “sorry” once or twice. She mouthed back “don’t be.”

Eventually there was enough of a lull that he came back.

“If I have to make one more Long Island iced tea, I’m gonna scream.”

“Aw.” She reached out to touch his arm. Any excuse to touch him. He leaned into it. “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s play a game.”

Zuko’s eyes widened slightly. “Katara, I’d love to but,” he gestured toward the full room.

“No, no, don’t worry. It’s easy. Just play whenever you can.”

“Alright. What game?”

“Truth or dare.”

He breathed a laugh. “You’re on. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Do you want another drink?”

_Starting easy, huh?_ “Sure.”

“Red or blue?”

“Red. No wait – whatever you want to give me.”

He thought for a moment. “I’ve got just the thing.”

“Truth or dare?” she asked him as he buzzed about.

“Uhhh…truth. My hands are kind of full right now.”

_Start small,_ she thought, thinking back to their conversation that night at the overlook.

“If I gave you the power of transformation right now, what would you use it on?”

“Hmmm… that’s a good question. Oh, I know!” he said. “I’d transform this entire place into a zoo.”

“Why a zoo?”

“I like animals. Plus, everyone here would disperse, and I could just hang out with you.”

_Aw._ Katara felt a blush on her cheeks that she hoped was hidden by the dim light.

“One more round before I gotta go back. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“If you had the power to see your future or change your past, which one would you pick?”

“Past.”

“You answered that fast.”

“That one is easy. I’d make it so I had my mother back.”

Zuko busied himself peeling the perfect orange twist. “So-would-I,” he mumbled.

“What was that?” Katara noticed his lips moving even though he had ducked his head.

“Nothing.”

“What did you say?”

“Hey, it’s your truth. Not mine.”

“Fine. Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to tell me what you said.”

“That’s cheating.”

“It’s not cheating. It’s a loophole.”

He huffed. “I said, ‘So would I.’”

“Wait, what? What do you mean?”

“That’s two questions. That’s definitely cheating.” He set another drink in front of her. This one was in a champagne glass and had a light red color to it and a beautiful twisted orange peel garnish. “And because I know you’ll ask, that,” he said, pointing to it, “is called a Goodnight Kiss.” With that he scurried back to the crowd of people that had collected at the other end of the bar.

_Wait, what?_

_Too much information._ Katara could feel her mind spinning but not processing.

_Sort by time received._

_First. I asked him to make me whatever he wanted to give me. He made me a Goodnight Kiss._

_!!!!!!!!!!_

_Aw. Awwwwwww._

_Okay, focus, Katara._

_Second. I said I’d make it so I had my mom back. He said ‘so would I.’ He lost his mom too? He must have._

She filed that under her ever-growing list of unclear Zuko-isms. It was right up there with his bit on suffering and ‘a fresh start’ and his evasiveness in talking about his family. And his scar. She still hadn’t figured that one out.

He ran back to grab something. “Truthordare?” he said, breathless.

“Dare.”

“I dare you to go over to the jukebox and put on something actually good. This bass is giving me a headache.”

“Can I pick something with a fast tempo? Or would that treble you?”

Zuko closed his eyes and fought the smile that threatened to break across his face.

“Nice,” he said, simply.

“Thanks,” she responded, self-satisfied. She sipped her drink and noticed that he waited for her reaction before he left again. It was light and slightly sweet. It tickled on her tongue a bit.

“I like it,” she said as she put it down.

“I hoped you would.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

When Zuko’s shift ended, he asked her out to dinner again. They found themselves in a booth of a late-night diner, one of the few things open other than pizza. They ordered breakfast food and laughed over nothing and everything.

“I think it’s your turn,” Katara remembered as they finished their plates. “Truth or dare?”

He reached across the table to hold her hand. “Truth.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

She chewed her lip, unsure of what to ask or how to ask it. _What did you mean by ‘What will you do with it’?’ What happened to your mom? What’s that scar from?_ She decided on none of those. Instead, she asked something tangential.

“Why did you want to be invisible when you were a kid?”

“Invisibility…” he mused. “Isn’t it obvious? I wanted to hide.”

“From what?”

“Are we allowing follow-up questions now?”

“I am. Are you?”

“I suppose,” he said, stroking his thumb over her knuckles.

“So?”

“So…”

“You were hiding from…?” she prompted.

“My father.”

Katara didn’t have time to sort through the million things that that could mean before he spoke again, this time unprompted.

“I had a rough childhood, Katara.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t want to put you through that.”

She pulled his hand closer to her and settled against the backrest of the booth. “I’m here to listen. However much you want to tell me.”

He took a deep breath. Counted to ten. And then he told her his story.

His story started with a normal childhood. Two parents, a sister. His story ended with no one. The in-between was heartbreaking.

An abusive father. A mother who threw herself in the line of his fire every time he came for their children. And an afternoon that changed everything.

Zuko told her how he always used to hide in a closet when his father came home. One day, he’d hidden in the closet as usual and his parents screamed at each other, as usual. But then his dad had picked up a glass bottle, smashed in half, and held it over his mother’s head. Not usual.

She screamed and ran. Usual.

Zuko jumped out of the closet. Unusual.

His father stumbled over Zuko. Unusual.

His father struck him with his hand. Usual.

His father cursed at him. Usual.

Zuko stayed in place. Unusual.

Zuko stood up. Very unusual.

His father struck him again, this time with the sharp end of the broken bottle. Very unusual. Zuko put up his arm to protect himself from the attack.

His father held his arm down and struck him across the face with the broken bottle. Never happened before.

Never happened again.

And the rest?

The rest, Zuko didn’t know. He told Katara as much. “He hit me across the face and then it was just black. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital and there was this social worker lady talking to me.”

“That’s how?” Katara asked, nodding toward his left side, unsure of how else to broach the topic of his scar.

“Mhm,” he said, touching his cheek.

“And your mom?”

“I was lying in a hospital bed, half of my face torn up and throbbing in pain, and that lady told me my mother was dead.”

“Oh, Zuko.”

“She attacked him when she saw what he did to me. And he killed her for it.”

“Oh, Zuko…”

“She died because of me.”

“Zuko…”

“I know,” he interrupted her half-formed thought. “I know. It’s not my fault. I’m still working on that part.”

She was overwhelmed with his honesty. With the rawness of it. With the painful similarity. Katara reached across the table to gently stroke his face.

“I know what you mean.”

He looked at her with a brutal, demanding honesty that said, ‘Do you?’ A look that said, ‘Lie to me about anything but this.’ And she answered, ‘Yes. Yes, I understand you.’

He asked ‘How?’ by the furrow of his brow, the twist of his features, the tension in his shoulders.

“My mother died protecting me too,” Katara said. The words filled the space between them.

‘Tell me more’ was written all across his face. But he probably felt just as bad asking her as she had about asking him.

“Home invasion gone wrong,” she said simply.

“That sounds traumatic.”

“It was. She hid me under a bed, so I didn’t see it happen. But I heard it. And when the coward ran, I found her. I tried to do whatever I could to help her, but I was eight and I didn’t know what to do. She was already gone anyway.”

Katara felt the same way she always felt when she talked about that day. A hollow ache in her chest that crept into her throat and made it hard to breathe. Sometimes she cried. Sometimes she didn’t.

Today, she didn’t. Today, she looked across the table and saw someone who understood. He understood when to speak, when to stay quiet, when to change the subject, when to not.

And so, understanding all of that, he said, “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” she answered.

“Come on a walk with me.”

He pulled her up and didn’t let go of her hand as they weaved through neon-lit streets and dark residential neighborhoods in the same stride.

She walked close to him, close enough to feel the heat of him. It was a warm night, but she found herself leaning closer anyway, wanting nothing more than the comfort of him. If they were close enough for their conversation back at the diner, they were close enough for her to do this, she reasoned.

When he felt her press against him, Zuko wrapped his arm around her, and her heart broke a little at the gentleness of it.

And then she understood. ‘ _What will you do with it?’ is ‘How will you transform it from something horrible into something good?’_

And then she understood his wish for the power of transformation. But what he didn’t know is that he already had that power. He was living proof of it. He transformed violence into gentleness. Cruelty into empathy. He took the broken pieces of himself and glued them back together in a mosaic of sarcasm and puns and unnecessary kindness.

Suddenly she couldn’t wait anymore.

“Truth or dare?”

He stopped and turned to face her, looking amused that she still wanted to play this game.

“Truth,” he said.

“Did you make up the names of the cocktails you made me?”

“No. Why?”

“The last one.”

Katara worried maybe that was too vague. But he seemed to understand because his gaze drifted downward to her lips before flicking back up.

“Did you like it?” Zuko stepped forward, his face only inches away from hers now.

“I did. But I think you could improve on it.”

“Okay,” he whispered. “How’s this?”  
  


He cradled her face with two hands, tipped her head back slightly and held her there for a second. She could feel the tickle of his breath on her lips and she wanted him so, so badly to close the tiny gap.

_Fuck it. Ima do what I want._

She rose up on her tiptoes and met him. He kissed her softly until she wound both arms around his neck and pulled him closer to deepen the kiss. He felt like warmth and comfort and safety. But he kissed like he talked, tender one moment and playful the next. She whimpered softly when he ran the tip of his tongue along her bottom lip. He smiled against her lips and laughed lightly. He was always laughing at her.

“Now that,” he pulled back and his eyes were light with mirth, “is the best reaction I’ve ever gotten.”

He was always laughing at her. But she laughed too because he was right.

“What can I say? You blue me away,” she said.

Zuko let the smile spread across his face before he leaned down to kiss her again.

“I’m keeping you.”

* * *

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> So….who else likes puns? 😅
> 
> REAL NOTES:
> 
> Cocktails (unlike flowers) do not have a bunch of symbolism associated with them. They do however have fun names that I can play with. 😉
> 
> Jungle juice is….oof. Very alcoholic and very cheap. Often served at big parties. And the description that Katara gives? About the plastic storage bin and the shovel? Yeah, that’s mine. Saw that at a frat party in college. Good times… 😬
> 
> Sorry for the stats joke. Sorry for hating on stats. But it truly is the bane of my existence… and THAT is why we have medical statisticians. So people like me can just dump data on them and say, “analyze plz. tyvm nerd.” 😘
> 
> I hope the emoji’s show up for everyone. If they don’t, all you’re missing in Katara’s text is a pineapple and a koala. The rest are all face emojis. Which are nice. But it doesn’t detract from the story if you can’t see them.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> If you did, please tell me. I love writing. But I also love hearing from y’all.
> 
> ❤️🧡💛
> 
> -kay
> 
> hang out with me on [tumblr](https://fiyazu-lorko.tumblr.com)  
> ❤️


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